It's All About Politics
Or
Phil's Help Desk Adventure, Part III

After having the Level 2 guy return my laptop untouched, I should have learned my lesson.

But I didn't.

The next day, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I thought, "Maybe they'll swing by today" and "maybe they're just going to get me a brand new state of the art computer and transfer my files later!"

Throughout the day, I stopped by my desk to see if anyone had stopped by and left me a note and/or left me a voicemail. I had voicemails, but nothing from the Help Desk or Level 2.

At this point, I try not to think of my e-mail. You see, when I'm away from my desk for a few hours in meetings, I get a couple e-mails while I'm out. If I'm out for a day, I might get 20 to 25 e-mails. Any longer than that and the messages start to pile up. The longest I've ever been out (which you can read about here and here) I had a few hundred e-mails when I got back. And let me tell you it's not fun spending two days just going through your e-mail, resulting in more work in addition to the work that piled up while you were out.

But I try not to think about it.

The next day, I finally came to my senses and said, "screw the benefit of the doubt" and gave the Help Desk a call to see what exactly was happening with my computer. And this is about how it went...

"Hello, this is the Help Desk, may I have your name?"

"Phillip Chan."

"Hi Phillip, what can I do for you today?"

"Um, I put in a call a few days ago, my computer isn't working. I was just wondering what the status of that is."

"Hold on, let me check."

(Long uncomfortable silence... I can hear the click clacking of the keyboard on the other end of the phone.)

"Your ticket has been closed out. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Closed?"

"Yeah, a couple days ago."

"But my computer's still not working."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Same problem?"

"Yeah."

"I'll reopen this ticket and get someone to stop by your desk right away."

"Thanks."

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No, there's really not much else you can help me with since my computer is broken, is there?"

"Uhh, no. Have a good day."

"Bye."

Now here's the surprising part to my story. About 20 minutes later, someone actually showed up at my desk with two boxes in tow! (The guy actually reminded me of the guy that was on Felicity and who occasionally pops up on Alias.)

I pointed him to my broken laptop and he took it out of the docking station without staring at it for five minutes not knowing what to do. Already, I had a better feeling about this guy than I did about the first Level 2 guy.

He opened up one of the boxes, pulled out a fresh battery. Swapped the new battery out for the old one and redocked the laptop. He said, "There you go. Just let the battery charge for a few hours and that light should go away. You're all set."

"All set? What about my hard drive?"

"You were part of the upgrade pilot right?"

"Yeah."

"I can't touch it. It's a whole political thing. Let's call the upgrade team to see if they can get you a new hard drive."

As he dialed the number, I thought, "Political thing? I don't want to run for president, I just want to be able to check my e-mail and get my files back!"

A short phone conversation later, the guy who looked like the guy from Felicity and Alias turned to me and said, "I'm sorry but that's all I can do for you now. But I promise you, we'll get a new machine for you. Someone will contact you later today regarding that."

Hopefully I asked, "What about my files?"

He reassuringly replied, "We'll try our best to get your files back. I've seen stuff like this before and in 90% of the cases, we've been able to get at least some of the hard drive back."

The guy who looked like the guy from Felicity and Alias left and as he promised, someone did call me the same day to tell me that they were getting me a new machine and that they would need to reset my password.

A new laptop... My files which I thought were lost being saved... I left that day feeling slightly relieved at the day's events. Little did I know that feeling of relief wasn't going to last.

To Be continued...